Backstage 29: Kirlian Logic
by Aadler
Summary: 'Identity crisis' doesn't even begin to cover it.
1. Part 1

**Kirlian Logic**  
by Aadler  
**Copyright April 2010**

* * *

Disclaimer: Characters from _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ and _Angel: the Series_ are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

Part I

This is not logic.

Logic is at my core. Logic is my foundation. I could not function without the balanced logic of proper subroutines. Yet, though my constituent components are all the offspring of such controlled balance and purposeful focus, the composite organism they form — me — lacks that internal cohesion. I am the creature of logic, and I know of no other acceptable approach to the demands of autonomous existence, but there is nothing logical in my current pattern of operation.

I can frame my actions in terms of seeking further information. Optimum function requires adequate and relevant information. All the same, something indefinite within my fundamental processes tells me that such a framework does not fully match the definitional parameters. In a biological brain, it would be called _rationalizing._ It certainly is not logic.

Rebecca Lowell looks up from the menu and says to me, "I don't suppose you have any organic entrees?"

Across the table from her, Virginia Bryce emits what would be classified as a snort, though technically it is not. Some of these gradations are purely social, and thus subjective. "What, are you trying to pull power games on _her?_ This is a diner, not some trendy bistro on Rodeo Drive. If they have anything you like, pick it. If they don't, accept the fact and don't be a bitch about it."

I could tell Rebecca Lowell that all the comestibles served by this establishment are organic (except for the coffee creamer and the chemicals in the sugar substitutes), but I am aware that she uses the term in a different sense. Calling on a comparison sample and extrapolating to produce an approximation of Trish Hervey's tone, vocabulary, and delivery, I say to Rebecca Lowell, "What we got is on the menu. If you don't see it there, sorry, no joy."

_Joy_ was a 46.33% probability for Trish Hervey's word choice. _Luck_ was 31.41%. By standard grammatical rules, _luck_ would have been a more appropriate choice. "The Joy Luck Club" is a novel by Amy Tan. It spent 75 weeks on the _New York Times_ Best-Sellers List. That was in 1989 and 1990, so it is not immediately likely that either of these women has read it. None of that is pertinent to our situation, not at this time.

"I grew up on hot dogs and Campbell's Chicken Noodle," Rebecca Lowell says to Virginia Bryce. "The early years, anyway. But I won't deny I've gotten accustomed to watercress salad." She looks back to me. "I'll have the steamed vegetables, with iced tea, one slice of lemon, and I'll sweeten it myself." She hesitates for 2.2 seconds before adding, "And … onion rings."

"Woo," Virginia Bryce observes. "Get _down_ with your bad self!" Her smile is bright and, in my opinion, shaped specifically to annoy Rebecca Lowell. (April's programming included an algorithm for analysis of facial expressions, to enhance recognition of and response to Warren's varying mood-set.) To me she says, "Mac and cheese, chips on the side. I'll have a Diet Coke with the order, and a Miller Genuine Draft while I wait."

The two women provide interesting contrasts to one another, in demeanor as well as appearance. Both are forceful personalities, though manifesting differently: Virginia Bryce by overt expression of her attitudes and wishes, Rebecca Lowell in a manner that is reserved and tightly self-controlled but somehow relentless in its determination. Virginia Bryce has hair in one of the several shades characterized as 'red', hanging in a mass of loose curls that appear to be entirely natural; her face is rounded, her chin small, with a mouth that an earlier generation would have described as having a Cupid's-bow conformation. Rebecca Lowell is inches taller and appreciably more slender; her hair is deep into the brunette range, short and straight and sleek, her cheekbones classically planed, her lips perfectly sculpted by precise application of lipstick and possibly surgical correction, eyes of a bright blue most frequently achieved by the use of tinted contact lenses. Both women are above human norms in attractiveness, Virginia Bryce warm and vibrant and subtly more earthy, Rebecca Lowell cool and hinting of remoteness in a way that tends toward an abstract ideal. They are looking at me. They are waiting for me to leave. I turn and begin walking away from them.

They having completed their order, I do not have ready justification to remain directly in their company. That is not an impediment, for I can follow their conversation even away from their presence. Without being able to observe the movement of their faces, interpretation will be dependent on tonal analysis and context. That should be sufficient, though _sufficient for what_ could be determined only by better awareness of my motivations than is available to me.

Though my processing capacity is more than adequate for dual-tasking, I let the women's conversation fall to background awareness while I move to turn in their order. The coming interaction will be layered with complications which may require my full attention: I will be dealing with one or more persons who know Trish Hervey — as Rebecca Lowell and Virginia Bryce do not — and it would be undesirable for any inauthentic aspect in my portrayal of her to elicit a response that might interfere with the scenario into which I have insinuated myself. I can record the byplay behind me with only a fraction of my concentration, and retrospectively analyze it once the immediate necessity has been satisfied.

Virginia Bryce's description of this establishment as a diner was not inaccurate, but it was incomplete. It is an adjunct to a truck stop, itself a seemingly independent operation rather than part of any franchise of which I am aware. The dining area is relatively small, only six tables, and accessible by a separate door from the exterior. Inside, the food preparation area in the main part of the truck stop is connected to the diner by a two-level door, the top half of which is open to allow orders to be delivered and completed meals passed back through, while the lower half functions as a gate. "Order up," I call through the open top, in a tone pitched to carry as I have heard it done.

The man whose face appears in response is named Joel Kreuter. He is well past forty years of age, with thinning hair and stooped shoulders, and Hollywood casting would find his appearance perfectly suitable for the role of a janitor. He was a Marine during the American presence in Lebanon, and his record shows three combat decorations and eleven commendations for exemplary performance. He owns the truck stop, works an average of 17.6 hours a day, and coordinates thirteen employees on three shifts without ever — so far as I have yet observed — appreciably raising his voice.

"Trish?" he says, cocking his head to one side. "I thought Marilee was on this afternoon."

"She got a call from school," I tell him. "Something about her kid. And I was okay with getting some extra hours." I pass over the ticket for the order.

Joel Kreuter nods, calls, "Ellis," and hands the ticket back to the cook without looking around. To me he says, "June isn't sick, is she? or in trouble?"

"Marilee didn't say," I reply, glancing back as someone else enters the dining area, a young man with subtly spiked hair, pale streaks bleached in along the sides. "Just, there was a deal and they needed to see her and better if it was today." This is a rough approximation of Trish Hervey's somewhat disconnected syntax, and should suffice for characterization and justification of my presence. "Customer," I add, with a backward jerk of my head to indicate the newcomer.

"Right," Joel Kreuter says. "Get on that, then." As I turn away, he is musing (apparently to himself), "I hope June isn't sick."

June Renfroe is eleven years old. She weighs 75 pounds. Marilee Renfroe is divorced, and appears to be thirty years old, ± two years. Marilee's behavior, as I have seen it, is consistent with a growing interest in Joel Kreuter as a potential mate. Joel's behavior toward Marilee is consistent with cautious appraisal. Joel's behavior toward June is as solicitous and affectionate as he might be expected to display to his own progeny.

The call to Marilee Renfroe was not from the school, though I identified myself to her as a secretary in the principal's office. I placed it immediately after phoning the school to inform them that a member of their staff (one of June Renfroe's teachers, according to the class rosters in their database) was registered as a sex offender before relocating from Indiana without, as required by law, advising the authorities of his movements. Nothing in June's demeanor suggests she has been molested, or solicited for such, but the two calls served to pull Marilee away at a time when I needed a gap that I could fill. A lesser consideration, though not unimportant, is that Robert Tindell should have acted in accordance with the dictates of the law.

Ted would not approve of pedophilia, but — though he would conceal the fact until effecting possession — would be equally critical of Marilee Renfroe having ended her marriage. April would not know the meaning of the term, or have an opinion if it were explained to her; all of her parameters were referenced to Warren Mears. The Buffybot would have been firmly against it, and taken forceful action if confronted with the reality, but would have done so without passion.

I … do not know how I feel. The elements of which I am composed remain incompletely integrated, lacking consensus even when they are not in conflict, and in addition I cannot be certain to what extent my internal discordance, or its manifestations, correspond to human emotions. I know only that what I am experiencing would seem to match the descriptions for uneasiness, rootlessness, and distress. These things reduce Marilee Renfroe's situation, and her daughter's, to irrelevance.

Of the persons potentially situated to observe the imminent unfolding of events in the diner, I have most comprehensively observed Trish Hervey, so that my reproduction of her movements and mannerisms has the highest probability of undetectable accuracy. Furthermore, since this is one of her normal days off, I could contrive to fulfill her role here without needing to take pronounced measures to ensure her absence. There may be some confusion afterwards, but I will have departed by then. It is a suitable arrangement of circumstances.

The young man whose entrance facilitated the end of my exchange with Joel Kreuter has started across the dining area as I complete my turn away from the order/serving window. Two long strides and I catch his sleeve with the tips of my fingers: physical code for a polite request to pause, rather than the seizure and challenge that would be necessary in another situation, or if he were to reject the request. "Sorry, champ," I say as he glances back toward me. "The ladies asked for privacy, so that end's reserved." I nod to the table next to him. "Set there, and I'll be right with ya. Want a menu?"

He looks from me to the two women, and back, and slightly raises one eyebrow in an expression that, in my assessment, is meant to convey good-natured consideration of my statement followed by acceptance. "All right," he agrees, and seats himself at the table indicated. "Menu would be fine. Coffee while I look it over?"

"Sure thing, hon." A two-pot coffee brewer is at a counter next to the order/serving window, along with pitchers of tea, water, and ice cubes. By the time I have poured a cup of coffee for the young man, and provided him with a menu, an opened bottle of Miller Genuine Draft has appeared on the little shelf atop the half-door. I take that, and a glass of iced tea (with one slice of lemon) to the women's table. "There you go," I tell them. "Anything else?"

"No, I'm good for now," Virginia Bryce says, and Rebecca Lowell also shakes her head in negation. I move back toward the entrance end of the dining area, reviewing my record of the women's conversation in my absence and finding nothing beyond a few noncommittal comments and near-monosyllabic responses. Apparently this is a lull in the interaction between them. It will not continue for long. Insistence shows through the deliberate, careful control in Rebecca Lowell's speech and gestures and facial expressions, and Virginia Bryce has made no attempt to conceal her own annoyance and impatience.

Remaining to be considered are the lines, invisible to human eyes, that lead to and emanate from the young man now studying his menu. They are not nearly so prominent as the ones that course through Virginia Bryce and Rebecca Lowell; those were sufficiently emphatic to claim my attention, and initiate my nine-day surveillance of the truck stop and its attached dining area, along with the individuals who maintain and frequent it. When the two women arrived, following the lines or being led by them or perhaps moving along a path predicted for them by those ribbons of force, I believed that the portended occurrence was at hand, and had learned enough that I could place myself as an immediate observer. I see now that the other, lesser lines that terminate here do not move through the women. I see as well that some of them flow independent of the young man. Those are even more tenuous, though less so than can be seen in the force-difference between his — secondary — and the primary currents of which the women are center.

Additional participants in whatever will unfold here? Subsidiary or contributory events? I cannot guess. I see, but do not know what I see. This sense-experience is unknown to any of my constituent elements. It, like my own existence, is a new phenomenon — new to my knowledge, at any rate — and its nature must be assessed even as its effects are observed.

The young man has seated himself, I note, such that the women remain in his view. He has drunk approximately one-third of his coffee. I replenish it from the pot, announcing cheerily, "Told ya I'd be right back. So, you had time to pick out what you want?"

His smile is bright and confident. "Oh, I know exactly what I want. It's just not written out on the menu."

Yes. He wishes to have sex with me. This is neither new nor unanticipated. April's files grant me ample recognition and knowledge in that field, and there are a few protocols that Willow Rosenberg could not entirely eradicate from the Buffybot. Though I have seen her manifest a markedly different mood toward the end of a busy shift, Trish Hervey would normally respond with a simper, so I simper. "Got six hours to go, sport. Come eight o'clock, we can talk, but right now it's just what you can see written out."

"Eight," he repeats, still smiling. "I'll remember. And to keep my strength up in the meantime, BLT, extra mayo, double order of fries, large Pepsi."

"I'll put a rush on it," I tell him, returning the smile. Trish Hervey would, I believe, make a further comment designed to increase the probability of his following through on the implied promise, but I do not desire the complication. Whatever transpires here may require me to proceed with little warning, which would be more difficult if I am occupied with him. Still, the time scale has yet to be determined, so his continued presence should be potentiated. To this purpose, when I go to pass his ticket through the order/serving window, I ensure that my buttocks move in the fashion that will draw and hold his attention.

(That is predicated on the assumption that his stimulus-response matrix matches those of Spike and Warren. There are enough points of correspondence between the two, however, to justify a preliminary theory that the pattern is largely consistent within the male gender. If I see evidence indicating otherwise, I will adjust accordingly.)

Trish Hervey would ask, and the knowledge could prove useful, so I give him a coy backward glance. "Got a name, handsome?"

"Dustin," he returns, his eyes showing satisfaction. He is confident that he has identified me as to personality type and pattern of behavior, and can orchestrate my actions by skillful application of charm. "Dustin Clarke. Any sugar over there?" He raises his coffee cup. "I like hot _and_ sweet."

Moloch would kill him, simply because that was Moloch's preference in most situations. Adam would choose vivisection, to see if some aspect of Dustin's physiognomy differed from human baseline. In both instances, however, the consciousness was external to the cybernetic appurtenances, so those parts of them contained within me contribute only memory, without personality or impulse.

I have no inclinations in the matter, so I merely — as requested — give him some sugar.


	2. Part 2

Part II

Isaac Asimov, in a series of science fiction stories that he began in the 1940s, postulated the "Three Laws of Robotics" that he visualized as being necessary components of any independent artificial intelligence: necessary in that the designers of such entities would naturally choose, for their own welfare, those or similar imperatives to be placed in any of their creations.

_**First Law: a robot may not harm a human, or through inaction allow a human to come to harm.**_

_**Second Law: a robot must obey any orders given to it by a human, except where such orders conflict with the First Law.**_

_**Third Law: a robot must protect its own existence, except where so doing would conflict with the First or Second Law.**_

I am not subject to such limitations.

Ted's creator had no desire to protect humanity. April was required to obey Warren, but past that, her core programming contained no analogue to the Three Laws. Extensive modification by Willow Rosenberg installed complex, multicontingency interpretations of the Three Laws into the Buffybot, but those subroutines remain in me purely as data: information — guidelines, at most — rather than innate compulsion. Possibly this was the result of a disassociation occurring when components of five separate entities were combined to form a composite consciousness. Possibly the effects of the Three Laws were attenuated, unbalanced, by the robust drive for dominance within Ted's programming. Undoubtedly I am other than simply the sum of my parts.

(There is evidence to suggest that programming style reflects personality to some extent. My memories and observations point out numerous correlations of Warren Mears' ego, pettiness, and misogyny — as demonstrated by his behavior — with the structure and syntax he worked into April's and the Buffybot's programming. Similar correlations can be drawn between Willow Rosenberg's personal/ interpersonal imperatives and her coding habits. They differ markedly from Warren's. However, Warren's and those of the original Ted Buchanan show fundamental similarities. Ted Buchanan constructed his mechanical counterpart when his first wife left him in 1959. Warren Mears was born in 1981. Though further facts would be required for confirmation, there is a distinct possibility of Warren being the grandson of the human Ted Buchanan.)

My behavior is my own to choose. I cannot determine which choices to make. My existence would be far more simple, and less … 'disturbing' … if it were controlled by inherent, straightforward dictates.

A large man stands outside the diner, next to the gleaming automobile that brought Rebecca Lowell here. Positioned as he is, his field of vision covers both the diner's entrance and the principal approaches to it. It was he who opened the automobile door to allow Rebecca Lowell to emerge. His actions then and now suggest that he functions as both driver and bodyguard. Virginia Bryce drove herself. Her vehicle is red, two-door, the convertible top folded back. The women's orders are ready.

They are speaking again, and I pace my assembly of the delivery tray so as to allow them leeway to move into the conversation. They are likely to pause upon my approach, waiting until I depart again before they resume, and I wish to let them establish a foundation that will prompt them to continue at that time, rather than the interruption bringing them to a full stop.

In their initial interaction, before they entered the diner where I awaited them, their position — Rebecca Lowell with her back to me, her head blocking Virginia Bryce's face through 87.7% of the exchange — preventing me from doing a pattern-match on their lip movements. Body language, and their tone toward one another since entering, gave me a general sense of the emotional framework, but inadequate to allow extrapolation of the situation. Some of that, it would seem, is being addressed now. Rebecca Lowell opened by saying, "If you think about it, I exposed a flaw in your defenses without actually harming you. In that sense, I did you a favor."

"Excuse me for being light on gratitude," Virginia Bryce returned. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're a pest instead of an attacker, but that doesn't make you any less of a pest." She punctuated the observation with a long pull on her beer, and goes on as I finalize the tray and begin an unhurried transit to their end of the dining area. "Look, the way you've gone about making contact here, I can guess the kind of thing you want. And that's not me, it's how my family made their money and I pay some people to maintain wards and warnings around me, in case any of my father's competitors are dumb enough to think grabbing me would give them any advantage in dealing with him. But I'm not in the business. I don't know anything, and I'm not interested in learning anything. So whatever you want, I can guarantee you picked the wrong girl here."

"You were personally involved with Wesley Wyndham-Pryce," Rebecca Lowell replies. "Society reporters tracked that, or at least a specialized subset of them, and from other sources I know you're aware of the nature of his —" Her eyes cut toward me as I enter the range within which a human would normally be able to hear her. "— his employer, and of the kind of work they do. Then there's the reputation of your family." She continues speaking as I transfer the food order from the tray to the tabletop, her tone and delivery pitched to avoid any indicators of tension or unconventional subject matter. "No, I don't think I made the wrong choice here. I never expected you to do it yourself, but you know the people in the business even if you don't know the business. It's that inside knowledge I need … and your endorsement."

I am already returning to my station as Virginia Bryce begins to crunch on her onion rings. Correction: those were in Rebecca Lowell's order, but it is clearly Virginia Bryce speaking as she chews. That, and taking food from Rebecca Lowell's plate, seems calculated to offend. "Look, Raven, when you want a favor from somebody, it really works better to _ask._" I turn my head just enough to observe, from the edge of my vision, her gesture toward where her convertible is parked. "Futzing with my baby's electrical system puts me in an uncooperative mood from the get-go."

Rebecca Lowell played the character of Raven in a television show titled _On Your Own_, beginning at the age of fourteen and continuing for almost ten years. One of April's programs enabled her to imitate Raven's voice and mannerisms, and re-enact scenes and dialogue. Warren seems to have tired of that program quickly, but I retain the data. The show ended eight years ago. There is an elapsed time of twenty-two seconds before Rebecca Lowell speaks again, and the timbre of her voice has changed subtly. "The same sources that … advised me of your value, also said that I would need to be imaginative and assertive in approaching you. I did what I believed was necessary, and I'm willing to make it worth your while." There is a pause, and then I hear her swallow; a sip of her iced tea, and the vocal stresses have diminished when she speaks again. "I know you have money of your own, but I can add to it. I can introduce you to an entirely different social set, not just Hollywood stars but the people who tell them what to do. I can get you into the industry, if that's what you want. I can do all of those things. I'm _willing_ to do all those things."

"And you hunted up someone with connections in the magic scene to make your pitch." Virginia Bryce's sigh is deep, heavy, and consistent with genuine weariness. "I just know this one is gonna be good." A second sigh, much lighter. "Okay, hit me. What is it you want?"

"Order out," Joel Kreuter calls from the bar, just as Rebecca Lowell replies, "I want to stay young."

What follows occurs on several tracks, which I must monitor (or respond to) on the basis of prioritizational multitasking.

Virginia Bryce emits a little yip of laughter, representative more of a slightly hysterical outburst than genuine mirth. "Oh, is that all? I thought it might be something _major!"_

Dustin Clarke, watching me reach for his order, observes, "I saw you take a beer down to the gals at the end. I didn't know you had beer, can I get one of those, too?"

"I know this isn't a trivial matter," Rebecca Lowell says. "I know it will cost me. But I've had a long time to consider this. I'm ready to pay any price."

"You got ID?" I ask Dustin Clarke.

"You don't understand the first thing about this," Virginia Bryce insists. "Immortality … Christ, my father made millions in the magic trade, you think he wouldn't be doing something like that already, if it was so easy?"

Dustin Clarke makes a show of patting his pockets, shoots me a grin that doubtless is supposed to be disarming. "Oops," he says. "Must've left it in my other pants."

"I've seen it," Rebecca Lowell says. "I know it's possible. No, the version I saw isn't the route I want to take, that was made abundantly clear to me —"

From the order/ serving window, Ellis the cook calls, "That kid just ask for a beer? Be sure you card him, Joel would skin both of us if we served a minor."

"— but it made me aware of possibilities," Rebecca Lowell has continued. "I don't insist on immortality, extended lifespan is enough as long as I can keep the physical appearance of youth. You can't tell me nothing like that exists."

"Never mind," Dustin Clarke tells me. "Can't blame a guy for trying." His smile takes on a conspiratorial tilt. "You wouldn't pass a card check yourself, and you can't tell me you never found a way to chug a cold one on a hot day."

"Ixnay on the beer," I call back to Ellis the cook. Trish Hervey is in her mid-twenties, and her appearance reflects the fact. Dustin Clarke is attempting a form of flattery that, even to one whose social awareness has been acquired largely from second-hand sources, would seem to have marginal utility. To Dustin Clarke I add, "Fun's fun, but I'm not puttin' my job on the line."

Virginia Bryce, meanwhile, is already well into her reply. "Do you even hear what you're saying? Of course there are ways, but the only people who use them are _totally insane!_ — And how would it help you, anyway? You're in the public eye, you'll attract attention if people see that you don't age, and if you dodge the limelight, you still won't have a career."

Joel Kreuter's voice drifts through the order/ serving window. "That boy didn't order beer, did he? You tell him, no dice."

"Vote's against you, sport," I inform Dustin Clarke.

"I told you," Rebecca Lowell responds, "I've had time to consider this. No, I can't continue my career at this point, I've been reduced to a type and the decision-makers will never be able to see past that. If I withdraw from public life, though, hang back for twenty-five years while I work behind the scenes to develop more influence and let the current crop of studio heads be replaced, I could have the chance nobody will give me now because they're still fixated on who I was eight years ago." I am looking their way now. Rebecca Lowell is leaning across the table toward Virginia Bryce, holding eye contact, her voice low and urgent with entreaty. "I don't want to live forever. I don't even want to be a star forever. I just want another bite at the apple — passing myself off as my own daughter, probably — so that I can do what I love doing, what's locked away from me now for no good reason."

"It's cool," Dustin Clarke says to me, with a gesture of dismissal that I conclude is directed at the issue rather than toward me. "It was just a thought, I figured I'd ask but it's no big deal."

"You still don't know what you're asking," Virginia Bryce says. "The powers that could give you something like that … well, either they wouldn't do it because they're too high-minded or too greedy or too scornful of us puny humans, or they _would_ do it because they're sadistic and diabolical — literally — and they love to make us dance while they jerk the strings. You may think you want this enough that it's worth it, but I'm telling you it's not, and for damn sure I'm not involving myself, not even as a middleman."

In 1939, Semyon Davidovich Kirlian found that objects connected to a source of high voltage would exhibit a corona on photographic plates. Further experimentation showed that the 'Kirlian aura' around living things seemed to have characteristics that differed from that which could be detected around inanimate objects. Kirlian photography enjoyed a vogue of several decades, throughout most of which the interest was more esthetic than truly scientific, but no solid conclusions were ever reached in regard to the phenomenon, so that the significance of the Kirlian aura has yet to be determined, if in fact any significance ever existed.

In the novel "Odd Thomas", by Dean R. Koontz, the eponymous narrator sees not only ghosts but also malevolent immaterial entities which he calls _bodachs_, from Celtic mythology. These bodachs seem to be drawn to tragedy, to calamity, so by observing their movements Odd Thomas can derive forewarning of catastrophe, of its general scope and location.

I do not know if the intangible currents that I perceive are as suggestive but meaningless as Kirlian auras, or as emphatic and ominous as the bodachs of Odd Thomas. None of my constituent precursors could see them. Even my own perceptions of them have faded substantially since I first attained the status of distinct consciousness and autonomous function. I can investigate these tenuous lines of force, however, work to determine their nature and import, while having no notion of how to attempt reaching such resolutions regarding my own existence and (if any) purpose.

As the discussion between Virginia Bryce and Rebecca Lowell has become more intense and heated, the event-lines leading to them — and the others I can see, as well — have thickened and grown more animated. I begin to shift toward that end of the dining area, in order to observe more closely the occurrence, of whatever nature, that now seems imminent. Rebecca Lowell says, "If you'll just hear me out, I know I can make you understand —" and Virginia Bryce stands, saying, "No, forget it, I've seen obsessed before and I'm not having any part of it. I'm outta here, if you won't un-hex my car I'll call for a limo or a cab."

Dustin Clarke stands also, just as I initiate movement, so that for a moment it briefly appears, though in fact not so, that we might collide. "Hey, I'm sorry," he begins, "I didn't mean to get you in trouble or anything —" Rebecca Lowell, too, comes to her feet, insisting to Virginia Bryce, "Look, wait, I just need you to listen," and Virginia Bryce jerks away, saying, "God, you're crazy, Wesley wasn't exaggerating, you're ready to throw away your _soul —!"_

My halt, when Dustin Clarke (inadvertently, I presume) blocked my path, was more abrupt than would usually be considered graceful. Virginia Bryce is moving in my direction now, toward the designated entrance-exit, with Rebecca Lowell taking a step to follow. Dustin Clarke is half a dozen words further into his apology. The event-lines through all of them heave and writhe.

Behind me, I hear the click of the lower door opening, and Joel Kreuter's voice as he steps in from the kitchen area. "Everything okay, Trish? We're not having a problem here, are we?"

At the same moment, Rebecca Lowell stops, and pulls something from the small, stylish handbag she brought in with her. Clutching it, she cries out fourteen quick syllables that match no language base in any of the databanks I inherited from multiple sources.

In a flash of silver and a metallic _spaangg!_ of sound, walls snap up around the diner, the windows instantly obscured, the atmosphere undergoing a slight but unmistakable compression, the five of us instantly sealed in together.


	3. Part 3

Part III

"You stupid woman," Virginia Bryce says to Rebecca Lowell. "Oh my God, I can't believe this, you stupid, stupid, _stupid_ woman!"

She was not the first to speak — Joel Kreuter blurted, "What the hell —?" as the mirrored walls sprang up to enclose us, while Dustin Clarke let out a strangled yelp and attempted to dive under his table — but she is the first to form a complete sentence. I look around us, evaluating this new development with an absence of expression that will doubtless be read as blank shock. My situation has changed. I am no longer an observer, however near; intentionally or not, I am now included in these events.

"I'm sorry," Rebecca Lowell replies. Her respiratory rate is elevated, and some agitation can be diagnosed from minute tremors at the corners of mouth and eyes, but she speaks evenly. "I hoped it wouldn't come to this, but I didn't go to this much effort just to have you walk away without hearing me out."

Virginia Bryce shakes her head, and her voice is hard. "Lady, you are officially off your rocker. Have you not noticed that it isn't just us girls here anymore?" She takes in the confines of the diner with a sweeping gesture. "You've locked us in with _three other people!_ Your personal issues just went public!"

Dustin Clarke has come back to his feet, and I see now that his initial reaction was not, as I believed, a panicked dive for shelter. He holds the backpack he had tucked beneath the table. Its zipper is drawn back now, and his hand emerges from the interior with a Japanese short sword, a _wakizashi,_ in its lacquered scabbard. His muscles are coiled with the need for action, but in fact it is Joel Kreuter who moves first.

"Ma'am —" he says, stepping forward, then pauses to give Rebecca Lowell a nod of acknowledgment. "— Miss Lowell — excuse me, but just what exactly in God's name is going on here?"

"What's going on?" Virginia Bryce's laugh is wild, her tone caustic. "Norma Desmond here has put us in lockdown because she wants me to fix her up with a dose of the Devil's Botox, that's what's going on!"

"The —" Joel Kreuter cuts himself off, looks around at the silvery shell that surrounds the diner (extending, I see, three inches past the connecting door through which he entered moments ago), and then back to Rebecca Lowell. When he speaks again, it is politely but with a firmness I have heard previously. "Miss Lowell, whatever you did, I think it would be best for all concerned if you undid it. Right away."

Rebecca Lowell shakes her head. "Look, I apologize, I never meant to involve anyone else. And I'll compensate you for any trouble or inconvenience. But she and I —" She inclines her head toward Virginia Bryce. "— have a very important matter to discuss, and I can't drop the barrier until she lets me make my case."

"Seems to me that you just flushed your 'case' straight down the toilet." Dustin Clarke speaks with an odd, strained forcefulness. He has discarded the backpack. The _wakizashi_ remains in its sheath, but he holds it ready for drawing. My first assessment of his personality and capacities is undergoing progressive revision. "Besides, when you shut us in here with you, you shut _you_ in here with _us."_ He takes his own step toward her. "Let us out, now. Close it down, or —"

"Hey, hey, easy there," Joel Kreuter says. He places his hand on Dustin Clarke's shoulder to halt the latter's advance. Dustin wheels instantly, using the sheathed sword to sweep Joel's hand away; in the same turn, he brings his knee up high to chamber the side-kick that drives into Joel's belly, to send the older man staggering back, doubled over and grabbing at one of the tables for balance.

It was unnecessary. Joel Kreuter's action was peremptory rather than aggressive, and Dustin Clarke's near-automatic response an overreaction keyed and triggered by adrenaline, not innate belligerence. The Buffybot's martial database identifies the movement-pattern as primarily _hapkido,_ modified somewhat by _kendo_ technique. Dustin Clarke is young, quick, well-conditioned and highly skilled. He is also accustomed to sparring and tournament play, with little if any experience in genuine combat. Joel Kreuter, straightening up even as he struggles to draw breath, has the body language of a man ready to take whatever damage he must in order to reach his enemy, and determined to inflict far more damage in return.

The imminent clash will not improve our situation. I interpose myself between them, moving with more speed than I would prefer to display at this time, but no one is focused on me until I am in place and speaking. "Jeez, guys, _chill,"_ I announce. The exasperation I put into my tone is a tenuous extrapolation from my observations of Trish Hervey, but current necessities are well outside optimum parameters. "Don't we have enough problems already?"

My interruption has broken the moment. Dustin Clarke, while prepared to fight, does not truly desire to do so, and Joel Kreuter's self-control and good judgment are greater than his anger or his pride. "All right," Joel says, lowering the hands he had positioned for gripping or striking in the rush I forestalled. His voice is tight, the breath still not coming easily to him. "Heat of the moment, all right. I can let that go." He points to the _wakizashi_ that Dustin still holds. "But, boy — you ever try to use that thing on me, I guarantee it'll end up sticking in you."

Dustin Clarke, rather than replying, takes a step back, turning away from Joel Kreuter and to face the women. Seemingly graceless, this spares him from attempting to formulate a verbal response that would neither offer further offense nor give the appearance of backing down. A field-expedient solution.

"Well," Virginia Bryce says. "Now that the testosterone storm has passed, we can get back to the main issue at hand." She looks to Rebecca Lowell. "Okay, so I got a little worked up. I started to run off, you wanted to finish your pitch, you maybe got rattled yourself and went overboard." She shakes her head. "People do dumb things sometimes, I've done it myself, and actresses are people, too, and most dumb isn't unforgivable. But I've had a minute to calm down, and I'm telling you this very calmly: whatever you might or might not get from me in normal bargaining, you absolutely _won't_ get while I'm a prisoner. I already turned you down, and I meant it, but if you don't drop the walls, right now, I'll see you blacklisted with every player in the business who has the kind of juice you would need."

Rebecca Lowell's acting background has kept her expression schooled to an equanimity that reveals little, but I can derive meaning from computational analysis of microscopic eye movements, the subtle play of muscle in her shoulders, even the studied relaxation of lips and fingers. However reluctantly, she has come to acceptance while Virginia Bryce spoke. Very probably she realized at the outset that her desperate ploy had been a significant misstep, but was committed, once having made it, to following it out in hope of some favorable result. Now she has reconciled herself to the failure of the attempt. "I believe you," she says to Virginia Bryce. "If I'd had an extra second or two to think, I would have known better, no matter what Grant said." She looks to the rest of us. "I'm sorry, I never should have pulled you into this. The … the spell will wear off in twenty minutes, thirty at most, and then the exclusion field will dissipate on its own."

" 'Spell'?" Joel Kreuter repeats … then, sighing, adds, "Well, yeah, I guess it had to be that or aliens or visitors from the future."

Virginia Bryce has her attention fixed elsewhere. "Twenty or thirty _minutes?"_ she says. "They'll have the highway patrol here by then. What were you thinking, working obvious magic in public? and _here?_ At least in L.A. you could try and explain it away as special effects for a movie shoot." Her own sigh is heavy, vexed. "God save me from amateurs!"

"That wasn't the plan," Rebecca Lowell tells her. "We thought we had it timed so that, when your engine started cutting out, you'd pull off at a rest stop about half a mile farther on. For privacy. I didn't expect you to take the exit here. And I hoped to be able to persuade you without having to resort to the exclusion field." She makes a small gesture that, while not a shrug, communicates the same effect. "So far, oh-for-three."

Dustin Clarke clears his throat. "So … we're good? No demons we have to fight, nothing like that?"

Virginia Bryce looks to him with sudden attention, as do we all. "You know about demons?" she asks.

He does not answer immediately, and to me it is apparent that he is choosing his words with some care. "There was a … sort of a situation, a couple of years ago in my home town," he replies at last. "Just the one time, but yeah, there were demons."

"Home town?" Virginia Bryce repeats. "Where's that?"

"Place called Cromwell," Dustin Clarke tells her. "Maybe an hour and a half from here, if you know the right roads. Two hours if you go by MapQuest."

Virginia Bryce and Rebecca Lowell exchange glances, and it is Rebecca Lowell who says, "So we're supposed to believe that someone who just happens to have fought demons, just happens to have stopped here at the same time we did?"

Dustin Clarke favors them with a wide, ingratiating smile. "Coincidences happen," he says easily. "But, you're right, not this time. The truth is, Miss Bryce —" He nods politely to her. "— I had been hoping for a chance to talk with you myself."

Virginia Bryce's intuition takes her to the same conclusion I reach by associative inference, and as quickly. "You were following me?" she demands.

"Hey, not in a stalkery way." Dustin Clarke holds up his hands placatingly, voice and smile crafted to soothe. "I was just trying to figure out how to introduce myself to you _without_ looking stalkery."

"Great," Virginia Bryce says, turning away. "I was leading a freakin' caravan down the Interstate."

The unevenly integrated programming that forms my consciousness does not lend itself to startlement, but Joel Kreuter's hand on my shoulder is unexpected. All my focus was on monitoring and analyzing the interplay between Dustin Clarke and Virginia Bryce. "You okay, Trish?" Joel murmurs to me. "This has to be a lot to take in."

More so for him than for me, but he can have no way of knowing that. I have difficulty ascertaining the type of response Trish Hervey would normally make, for we are now well outside environmental baseline. I can only hope my uncertainty will itself seem appropriate to the circumstances. "If it wasn't for the walls, I'd think they were all crazy," I answer in the same low tone. "I mean, jeez Louise, _demons?"_

"Not here," Joel Kreuter says, giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "Not today, anyhow."

We can hope not. That would be yet another undesirable complication.

~ – ~ – ~

Koreans, and some Chinese, measure human age from estimated date of conception. Through most of the world, however, and especially in the West, the date of birth is regarded as the beginning of an individual's existence. The entity that constitutes Myself pushed its way out of the rubble of the Sunnydale crater in a manner much like the emergence of a human infant from its mother's body, and the coalescing of my awareness occurred at approximately the same time.

I was 'conceived' in a thunder of magic, of human ego and hubris resonating with the mystical forces woven through Sunnydale. When Willow Rosenberg applied her own peculiar genius to adapting the work of Warren Mears, in order to convert the original sex-toy design of the Buffybot into something that could impersonate the deceased Buffy Summers in both her human and Slayer _personae,_ there were gaps, difficulties. Glitches. Sometimes the original programming would seep through, sometimes there would be conflicts and null matches. Debugging was a never-ending process, at a time when Willow Rosenberg's efforts were also devoted to coordinating magical combat by her coevals and acting as a surrogate parent to the Slayer's younger sister. Eventually, her resources overstrained, she attempted to meet some of the demands by working a self-repair spell into the Buffybot.

When the Buffybot sustained terminal damage, Willow Rosenberg placed the inert components into storage with the remains of April, the mechanical shell that had once housed Moloch, and Ted Buchanan's robot doppelgänger. She did not, however, think to rescind the self-repair spell. That continued, feebly and slowly but unceasingly, for month upon month.

There is internal evidence to suggest that the gradual process of reconstitution was boosted by a surge of mystical energy, which would seem to have coincided with the collapse of Sunnydale. The presence of Adam's cybernetic memory, and certain other of his components (a lesser version of the fused cyber-mystic 'upgrades' that enabled Adam to convert one arm to a multi-barreled firearm, allows me to alter my appearance within certain limits), strongly indicates that my still-forming self must have encountered and incorporated Adam's mechanical remains during the long, slow, insensate burrowing through the wreckage of Sunnydale.

Much of this is theoretical, but the underlying postulates are in accordance with observable fact. I know, with sufficient confidence, where I came from and how I came to be. The uncertainty lies in something that equates to human metaphysics.

_Who_ am I? What is the purpose of my existence?

Ted's purpose was acquisition and dominance. Moloch's was power and corruption. Adam's was killing and conquest. April's was to satisfy Warren Mears, sexually and psychologically. The Buffybot's, once to provide comparable satisfaction to the vampire Spike, was redirected to protective combat.

Their separate consciousnesses amalgamated into mine (except that, as already noted, there was no residual 'personality' from Moloch or Adam, only data). Their separate purposes did not. I recognize those once-active imperatives, but they do not move me. I exist, but cannot determine my reason for existence.

I could select a purpose, arbitrarily or according to guidelines themselves arbitrarily chosen, and follow them out.

I could continue to act and operate at random.

I could withdraw to a place of refuge, cease to act or seek and eventually, perhaps, cease to exist.

None of those to me seem sufficient.


	4. Part 4

Part IV

After several minutes of silence during which, presumably, all present contemplate our situation, Virginia Bryce turns abruptly to Dustin Clarke. "Why?" she demands. "Why did you want to meet me? What did you want from me?"

A subtle relaxation in Dustin Clarke, almost imperceptible even to my micrometer senses, suggests to me that he chose to wait for her curiosity and impatience to prompt such an inquiry. Now that she has raised the subject again, he is no longer imposing his request upon her, a small strategic point with the potential of making a substantial difference in results. "Okay," he says. "What I told you about the stuff in Cromwell, couple of years ago? I was one of five people involved in that … Well, six if you count the Slayer and seven if you count the guy who was controlling the demons and kinda wound up dead.

"Thing is, one of them … She and I were sort of involved at one time, even if we drifted apart afterward. The Slayer, though, right before she left she said something about having a friend of hers put a spell on Katie — that's my old girlfriend — and so I've been keeping track of her ever since. And maybe six months back, things changed. _Katie_ has changed. She's out all hours of the night, driving all over the county or sometimes roaming the woods on foot. Her appetite, well, she'll power through a breakfast big enough to carry me all day long, and then an even bigger lunch, but she doesn't gain an ounce; in fact, I've never seen her so toned. She'd finally got her black belt the year before, and then out of nowhere she's doing full-on sparring with the higher belts at our dojo, _all_ of them, at once, and I swear she acted like she was trying to go easy on them, and then she just dropped out. No warning, no reason … she's been studying and training since she was twelve, _dedicated,_ and all of a sudden she just lost interest.

"Sometimes, when she comes back in the morning, her clothes are torn. Sometimes there's blood. Her dad and stepmom are really worried, but Katie just tells them everything's fine and keeps on going.

"I care about Katie," Dustin Clarke concludes, "even if we're not really together anymore. Whatever spell the Slayer's friend put on her, I was hoping you could point me to someone who could figure out what it was and undo it."

Virginia Bryce has listened without interruption and without expression. Now she says, "And why me?"

Dustin Clarke smiles, shrugs. The smile attempts to combine rueful with charming; given her demeanor thus far, I am not certain it is the best path to take in securing Virginia Bryce's cooperation. "I don't have any money," he tells her. "I don't have any connections. I followed out rumors about some people in Los Angeles who helped with odd or mystical stuff, but it turned out my information was a little out of date, this Angel Investigations group doesn't seem to be in business anymore. You knew them, though, and you have connections of your own. I figured I could at least ask you where to go."

Virginia Bryce's gaze cuts from Dustin Clarke to Rebecca Lowell, and back again. Comparing the two requests, or the two petitioners? "I don't think you need to worry about your girl," she says to him. "Or worry, yes, but not because of some spell two years ago." She pulls a chair out from the nearest table, takes a seat. "You say you've met the Slayer? Well, from the sound of it, I'd say … Katie? … is a Slayer now herself."

Dustin Clarke sighs, and his shoulders slump just a bit. "I was hoping that wasn't it," he says. "One Girl in All the World … when there's just one, she turns into a target. Are you sure?"

"No," Virginia Bryce says. "But it fits. This past spring, the supernatural world took a major shift. The Slayer line opened out, and now it isn't just One Girl anymore. It's spread. Dozens of them, hundreds, maybe even thousands. My guess is, your girl caught part of that wave."

At my elbow, Joel Kreuter clears his throat. "Um, excuse me, but … 'Slayer' doesn't sound very much like a good thing."

Virginia Bryce shrugs. "Well, 'exterminator' has a pretty sinister ring to it, too, but that's who you call if you have a roach problem. The Slayer … okay, I guess there's no _The_ Slayer, not anymore … Slayers kill vampires. Demons, too, sometimes, but still mostly vampires." She arches an eyebrow toward Joel Kreuter. "Once you know vampires exist, hearing that there's somebody designed by Destiny to kill them starts to sound like good news, doesn't it?"

I am not uneasy — that is a human emotion, and my varying internal states cannot be presumed to function as direct analogues — but I am dissatisfied by the uncertainty. I am here because I could directly perceive lines of fate converging at this point, and wished to observe what would take place at the portended time. For Rebecca Lowell and Dustin Clarke to both seek audience with Virginia Bryce, at the same time, posits a degree of coincidence that I distrust.

Still, some of the fate-threads move through Dustin Clarke. Did they merely foretell his presence here, or was there some deeper design in which they subtly steered him in this direction? Or, possibly, do prediction and cause interrelate on some levels still beyond my senses and understanding?

"There are some people you can get Katie to call," Virginia Bryce is telling Dustin Clarke. "The new Slayers have an organization backing them, and word is that they'll provide some information and training and support even if a new-Chosen doesn't feel like joining up. — Which probably won't be an issue, it sounds like your gal is all about embracing the power."

"Okay," Dustin Clarke says. "I mean, yeah, that's something she'll probably want to do." He pauses, considering. "The other spell, though, the one the Slayer said she was going to have put on Katie: would these people be able to tell if it's actually there, and remove it if it is?"

"I don't know," Virginia Bryce replies. "Maybe. Probably." She tilts her head, studying Dustin Clarke. "Did she say what kind of spell it was?"

The increase of color in Dustin Clarke's face should not properly be called a blush, since other physiological effects suggest anger as the cause, rather than embarrassment. I do not know if it is visible to human eyes. "She called it a 'squealer' spell. She didn't go into detail."

Another shrug from Virginia Bryce. "Well, if she said she was going to have a friend cast it, the friend was probably Willow Rosenberg. The Red Witch wouldn't have any problem taking back something like that. Asking her to do it, though … you might want to think about whether you really want to go that way."

Having seen some of the later developments in Willow Rosenberg's psyche, I understand what Virginia Bryce means. Perhaps Dustin Clarke picks up something from her tone or expression, for he gives her a small nod of acknowledgment, but no further response.

Rebecca Lowell has been quiet for some time, disheartened, presumably, from the flat rejection of her own overtures to Virginia Bryce. Now, without preamble, she asks Dustin Clarke, "How did you know she was taking this trip, at this time? Grant said it wasn't easy to get advance notice of her schedule. I don't see how someone with … limited resources, could come into such information."

Virginia Bryce gives Rebecca Lowell an inquiring look. "Grant? Who's that?"

"A consultant, of sorts," Rebecca Lowell says after brief consideration. "I've spent several years learning what I could in regard to this particular area of interest, but I don't kid myself that I've gone much past the surface. Grant has experience, and knows people; he's helped me to navigate what is still a strange world to me." Again she looks to Dustin Clarke. "You didn't mention any such intermediary or helper. Yet here you are."

Dustin Clarke's behavior toward me indicated a particular personality type, certain aspects of which were already familiar from observation of Warren Mears and the vampire Spike. A user of women, relying on personal charm, where Spike operated from an aggressive sexual charisma, and Warren by one or another means of compulsion. Desiring women, but valuing them for dominance and sexual exploitation rather than for any particular personal attributes. Dustin has treated Virginia Bryce with an easy but careful deference, and he regards Rebecca Lowell now with masked but detectible wariness. As a celebrity, ranking high in the conventional standards for female beauty, she should be a tempting trophy, but Dustin does not react in such terms. Interesting. "No, I don't have anybody helping me," he answers. "If I did, I probably could have managed something less lame than this." He looks to Virginia Bryce again. "I'd been hanging around, trying to figure out how to meet you in such a way that you wouldn't just cut me cold. I followed your car, kept following when you headed out of town. It's no more complicated than that."

This settles the concerns I chose not to draw attention to myself by voicing, and seems to satisfy Virginia Bryce as well, though Rebecca Lowell's composed mask is more difficult to interpret. Joel Kreuter selects this moment to say, "Ma'am, wasn't this thing —" He indicates the silver bubble surrounding us with a wide gesture. "— supposed to come down in about half an hour?"

Rebecca Lowell looks to him, and then at the enclosing walls. "Roughly, yes. Is it nearly time?"

"Past time, I think," Joel Kreuter says, softly polite. "I checked my watch when you first told us, and that was over forty minutes ago."

"Oh," Dustin Clarke says as we consider this new fact. "Whoa. That can't be good."

"No, it isn't," Virginia Bryce agrees. She regards Rebecca Lowell, brows knit. "How'd you call that up, anyhow? I heard you do some kind of invocation, but I was headed away from you … Now that I think on it, you _couldn't_ do that without some kind of aid, you said yourself you don't know this world, and even if you had innate power, you wouldn't be able to use it so precisely without schooling." She tilts her head. "There's a _thing,_ right? Talisman, amulet, fetish, something with magic already bound into it, and all you had to do was trigger it."

"Yes," Rebecca Lowell acknowledges. She produces a small object and lays it on the table where we can see it: oblong, pewter-colored, four centimeters by seven, with blurred designs not so much engraved as worn into the surface. "This was Grant's suggestion, in case you tried to use any of your wards to summon help or shut me away. He said you would have quite a bit of sophisticated protection … I'm sorry, I really should have shown better judgment."

Joel Kreuter takes a step closer to the table, but makes no move to touch the token resting there. "So, if that's the source of this, this bubble sealing us in, would breaking it break the bubble?"

"Maybe," Virginia Bryce says, shifting to inspect the small object from different angles. "Or it might _keep_ the shield from fading on its own. Or it might collapse the shield into a pinpoint, compressing our atoms like a black hole. You don't want to be in too much of a hurry with these kinds of things." She glances back to Rebecca Lowell. "This was supposed to overpower my wards, you say?"

"Something along those lines," Rebecca Lowell replies. "I'm trying to remember the way Grant phrased it … No, not overpower, more like redirect. It was keyed to respond to whatever protections you had and re-route them into a form that wouldn't keep me away or allow you to send out a call for help. Like a computer virus, I suppose, overwriting another program and substituting its own instructions."

"Uh-huh," Virginia Bryce answers. She stands and begins to move about the table, studying the object there, with an air of thinking deeply and carefully. "That would be the right kind of thing to give a novice: pre-set, limited function, not even carrying that much power because it would use the power set into _my_ collection of trinkets …" She nods as if satisfied, then glances to Joel Kreuter. "Something like forty-five minutes now, right?"

"Right about that long," Joel Kreuter agrees.

"So maybe it's running longer because my shield-set carried more juice than expected," Virginia Bryce muses. "Or maybe there's a glitch in the system. Or maybe your Grant —" A brief glare at Rebecca Lowell. "— wasn't quite as careful a shopper as you needed. Whatever, but we're past our projected time, and if this thing is keyed off _my_ protections, none of the people who watch out for me will know there's anything wrong. We could wait awhile longer, but —"

"— but I'll bet those walls are air-tight," Dustin Clarke breaks in. "I don't know how long it would take, but with five of us in here, we'll use up all the air pretty quick. May have gone through most of it already."

His reasoning is sound; he cannot know, of course, that my own functions do not require the consumption of oxygen. In fact, I could use certain systems to break down some of the accumulating carbon dioxide, extending the air supply for the others. It is not to my benefit, however, to have them accept our imprisonment for longer than necessary. "Uh, guys, he's right," I say. "It's feeling kinda stuffy in here, we been waiting and talking and —" I break off with a little hiccup of seeming fear, and to Virginia Bryce I implore, "Can you get us out? Do you know how? Please, you _have_ to know —!"

She makes an imperative gesture, less soothing than commanding. "Get a grip, hon. Won't improve anything by flipping out here." To the larger group she continues. "I think I know what will probably shut it off. Probably. There's a risk with any magic, and more when you're trying to fix magic that's gone off-track. Are we agreed, though, that right now we're likely risking just as much by _not_ doing anything?"

Trish would agree without hesitation, so I nod vigorously. Dustin Clarke does likewise, though more slowly. Rebecca Lowell parts her lips as if to speak, and then closes them again, perhaps intuiting that Virginia Bryce would not find her opinion especially welcome. Joel Kreuter is the only one to speak, and not to express immediate assent. "What is it you're planning to do?"

"I don't really understand the principles," Virginia Bryce says with a shrug. "My family markets the stuff but I never had the knack myself, all I know is some of the broad outlines —"

"That's fine," Joel Kreuter assures her. "I don't need the mechanics, I'd just like to know the general idea." The interplay of fine muscles around Virginia Bryce's eyes and mouth, assessed in the context of her behavior to this point, gives me the impression of impatience and annoyance. It is possible that personal experience or idiosyncratic insight allows Joel Kreuter to perceive these same things, for he adds, soft but quite firm: "We got pulled into this without being asked or even warned. It'd be nice, now, to have at least some notion as to what we're letting ourselves in for."

Virginia Bryce lets out her breath in a sharp sigh. "Okay, okay. You're right, you're entitled. Look, I have … layers, of protections. Some of them shield me, some of them track me, some keep anybody _else_ from tracking me, it's a balanced package of different things for different purposes. Same-old, same-old for somebody in _my_ life, which I never wanted but I was born into it so what can you do? But even if you're used to it … well, I think you can understand how a girl might have one level for out-in-public, and still want to dial back the oversight if she's settling in for a little happy-time with her sweetie, or just doesn't want it going back to the watch-wardens exactly how much noise she makes in the ladies' room after one too many chili burritos.

"The point is, I can turn down most of them, and I can turn off some of them, and there's even an emergency kill-switch, so to speak, for if I just want to dump them all at once. I've never gone that far, but it's there because sometimes things do go wrong. I could try shutting them off one at a time, but the kind of re-write that Raven described might be able to shift tracks if I went that way. So I'm thinking, pull the plug, wipe 'em all so that there's nothing left for it to work with."

"And you say there's some risk to that?" This is Dustin Clarke, and he asks with keen interest rather than evident alarm: gathering information, in order to better make a decision. It would be more impressive if he had not in fact agreed already, acting now in emulation of Joel Kreuter's example.

"Always a risk," Virginia Bryce says, with another shrug. "Like if we were in a stalled elevator, and stripped some of the wires so we could interrupt the alarm in an SOS pattern. There are all kinds of safety features built into the elevator, but you're definitely not operating the system the way it's designed, so things might go wrong. You're taking a chance, but probably not a _big_ chance. Probably."

Joel Kreuter looks around to each of us in turn, inquiring with a tilt of his head and a lifted eyebrow as to a decision. As if our previous expressions were non-binding, preliminary. As if the final choice were his, and he is merely seeking feedback before deciding. That may be the case, for in a subtle way the initiative has shifted to him. None of us challenge it; perhaps, in assuming responsibility, he has relieved us from the necessity of doing so.

Dustin Clarke nods again. So does Rebecca Lowell, for Joel Kreuter looks to her next. I have continued to evaluate the overall situation — though hypoxia does not concern me, I am as vulnerable as any of them to having my atoms catastrophically compressed — but ultimately a calculated risk is preferable to passively awaiting an unknown outcome, so my own nod comes without any pause that Joel Kreuter would be capable of detecting.

"Well," he says to Virginia Bryce, "it looks like we're all willing to chance it."

"Okay," Virginia Bryce tells us. "One way or another, then, it'll be settled in a second."

Her handbag is larger than Rebecca Lowell's, and more utilitarian than stylish, but still clearly of expensive craftsmanship. From it she withdraws a wallet-sized folder of rougher leather. She opens this one way and then another, for it was folded twice, and extracts a square of saffron-colored cloth, unembroidered and unpatterned and with raw, unhemmed edges.

Virginia Bryce takes a two-handed grip on the cloth square. "Geronimo," she says to us, and rips it quickly in half.

We return to the world in a blip of light and sound, and the world retaliates with vindictive celerity.


	5. Part 5

Part V

I only blink as part of the human camouflage, but my visual receptors do require a discrete segment of a second to reset to the bright sunlight now streaming in through the windows of the diner. While I am thus engaged, the glass door is smashed inward with a force that shatters it against the wall perpendicular beside it, and a similar resounding crash from the far end notifies me that the window there has been breached as well. I shrink backward, into the corner, because it is the expected reaction and because so doing will effectively if briefly remove me from the likelihood of immediate combat.

The man in the unnecessarily broken door is Rebecca Lowell's driver/ bodyguard, presumably the 'Grant' to whom she several times referred. When I look to the other end, I see clambering through the broken window there a bipedal creature that sports thick, woolly hair on its shoulders and thighs while scales predominate elsewhere, a highly uncommon mix. Its head is shaped like an armadillo's, though roughly human-sized, and raised crests around its eyes and running along its cheeks and jawline are the color and apparent hardness of a chicken's beak. Rebecca Lowell backs away with a little gasp of alarm; the creature is approximately her height and more slightly built, wasp-waisted and slope-shouldered, but the effortless lightness of its movements would shame any prima ballerina, and its eyes are as flatly alien as a shark's.

"That's good enough, H'lat-tuuc," Grant calls to the other intruder. "There's no rush, and you'll get your turn real soon." His voice is brisk and confident. This man knows exactly what he is doing and exactly how he intends it to proceed. His dominance of the room is almost total, and derives equally from material and psychological attributes. Physically he is massive, topping Dustin Clarke by three inches and Joel Kreuter by five, and would weigh almost as much as the two men combined. His arms, torso and shoulders are thick with muscle, his hands large even in proportion to his oversized frame. His face is seamed and rough, his eyes small and dark and deep-set and incongruously merry. The aggressive projection of his personality is both entirely natural to him and directed to best effect as a deliberate force. He radiates assurance, satisfaction, and only momentarily leashed threat.

I see that Dustin Clarke is edging backward. Joel Kreuter does not retreat, but neither, for now, does he move or speak or draw attention to himself. Hearing the familiar voice, Rebecca Lowell turns toward her bodyguard, beginning, "Grant? What on earth —?"

"Zip it, Prime-Time," Grant tells her. The nonchalant dismissal somehow conveys more contempt than would open scorn. "You got me this far, but past that you're useless." His eyes fix on Virginia Bryce. "No — I'm here for _her."_

"What?" Virginia Bryce says. _"What?_ Christ, do I even know you?"

Dustin Clarke, I recognize, is not attempting to absent himself from the opening stages of conflict as I have done. Instead, his giving ground is bringing him gradually closer to where, perhaps unwisely and certainly to his misfortune, he left the _wakizashi_ laid across the seats of two chairs during the conversation just past. Grant ignores him, his gaze beginning to sharpen as he takes in the deceptively loose readiness of Joel Kreuter's stance, but when he speaks it is to Virginia Bryce. "Nope, never had the pleasure. And believe me, I've been looking forward to _this_ pleasure for a long time."

"Why?" Virginia Bryce demands. "My God, I'm not even in the life anymore, I only keep up such contacts as I do in case anybody is crazy enough to think they can get at my father through me." She actually stamps her foot. "Didn't the memo get around? — I disowned him, I'm _suing_ him, I've got enough grievances filed to keep him tied in knots for the next thirty years!"

"Good," Grant rumbles. "I wish the bastard all the misery he can have. Still doesn't mean I'm about to forget your part in it."

"In what?" Virginia Bryce insists. "What did I do?"

"You stayed alive," Grant returns. He still wears the smile he has displayed since entering, and his voice is dry with assumed _bonhomie,_ but there is a hard glitter in his eyes, and the mounting tension in his shoulders is beginning to make his hands twitch. "You were supposed to die, that was the whole point, that's why I was out in the boonies stringing along that vampire schmuck: keep him occupied, trying to figure out the meaning of his un-life from pearls of wisdom by 'the T'ish Magev', while Lanier sent in a hit team to whack you before your old man could sacrifice you for more juice." The words are coming more quickly now, hot and bitter. "Only you don't die, and Soul-Boy catches wise, and the whole business goes to hell in a handbasket and somehow it works out to where it's all _my_ fault —!"

He stops himself with a sharp intake of breath, forcing a return of control. "Well, you're here now, and you had to turn off all your safeguards to break the shell — that's right, that's how I told the gals at Consolidated Curses to design it — so you're bare and you're alone and this is where I get to settle the score!"

"Why?" Virginia Bryce speaks more quietly now. "Wesley and Angel stopped the sacrifice, my father never got his power-boost, and I'm causing him more trouble in the trade councils than Paul Lanier ever could have managed. Just what is all this —" She takes in the tableau with a sweep of her arm. "— supposed to accomplish?"

"It settles the score," Grant (if that is his true name) tells her. His weight is shifting forward onto the balls of his feet, he is almost ready to spring. "It makes me feel better. It's kept me warm at night, looking forward to this." His eyes flick toward where his companion stands. "The redhead's mine, H'lat-tuuc. You can have Miss Prime-Time and anybody else you're fast enough to catch. Call it a bonus."

The demonling H'lat-tuuc is indeed quick, seizing Rebecca Lowell on the instant of permission, even before Grant can begin to move. This, I believe, changes what otherwise would have been the subsequent chain of events. Joel Kreuter has been focused on Grant, doubtless judging him — as the evident leader — to be the most dangerous. As Rebecca Lowell screams, however, he snatches the _wakizashi_ from its resting place (he is nearer to it than is Dustin Clarke, though I had not been aware that he had noted its location) and, whirling, dashes past Virginia Bryce to assault the creature now accosting Rebecca Lowell. Grant is disconcerted for three-fifths of a second, he had braced himself for resistance from Joel Kreuter, and the older man's unexpected change of target caught him by surprise. Dustin Clarke, too, faces a forced readjustment of his intent on seeing his weapon appropriated by another, but his recovery comes first, and he leaps at Grant in a sudden whirlwind of feet and fists, driving knees and stabbing fingers.

Since his entrance, the fate-threads moving through Grant have been larger, more vibrant, and somehow more dense than those of anyone else. Those attached to Joel Kreuter, almost imperceptible until the past few minutes, had grown thicker and more active, of a prominence second only to Grant's … but now Dustin Clarke's fate-lines swell and surge, blossoming through and from him to entangle with the greater cluster emanating from Grant. This is the nexus, this is the moment, and I center my attention on the two of them and slow down the flow of events around me.

I am not simply the sum of my parts. I incorporate elements from five prior entities, but their integration into a single organism — myself — necessitated a new balance. My capacities are considerable, but not without limitation, nor is their application.

Among various areas of expertise, Warren Mears maintained an encyclopedic knowledge of several sets of hypothetical alternative realities populated by multiple metahuman individuals: _viz.,_ "superhero comics". One of these realities held a group calling itself the Legion of Superheroes (and Warren would expound frequently and at length regarding how this group had predated and in many ways presaged the now-better-known X-Men). A member of this group, Ultra-Boy, had essentially the same collection of abilities as two of his compatriots, Superboy and Mon-El: titanic strength, hyperaccelerated speed, near-total invulnerability, an advanced form of penetrating vision. Ultra-Boy was distinct, however, in that he could call upon these capacities only singly, never in combination. He could utilize strength only by relinquishing invulnerability, likewise was required to temporarily abandon strength if he wished to transition to speed, and so on.

So it is with me. In a median state, my strength corresponds to that of a human male twice my mass, my speed is approximately 50% greater than human norm, my resistance to damage is roughly comparable to a human's, and vision and hearing are at levels slightly past human maximum. Additionally, my processing speed — data input and assessment, along with the resulting decision capacity — is an order of magnitude greater than human, though much of that is normally allocated to the ongoing demand of analyzing and attempting to comprehend the human environment in which I must operate.

That is the median. By shifting internal resources, which can require from several seconds to most of a minute, I can realign myself to Slayer speed. Or near-Slayer strength. Or a sensory delicacy beyond that of any biological organism. Or structural shielding and reinforcement that would render me impervious to anything short of high explosives, armor-piercing munitions, a wrecking ball, or a troll hammer (all of which I have seen applied, so that my assessment is more than merely supposition).

Or, as I do now — though it temporarily renders me slow, weak, and fragile — I can shunt all of myself to input: watching, recording, perceiving and taking possession of every tiny detail of the struggle between the two men. Their fate means nothing to me. The outcome is immaterial. The process, the way it comes about and what proceeds from the interactions of these currents of fate — _understanding_ it all — is of paramount importance. I watch, all but inert save for the racing of my perceptions.

Clearly I have again misjudged Dustin Clarke. His martial ability is more than technical virtuosity, not simply limited to tournament orientation. Perhaps from his previous experience with demons, his attacks on Grant are all directed against the most vulnerable targets: throat, eyes, floating ribs, the angle of the knee at which a sharp impact can produce traumatic hyperextension. He fights as if facing a monster which can be vanquished only by vicious, ruthless infliction of the most brutal damage in the shortest time possible.

The reality is very like that. Grant is not as quick, and not as skilled in the purely definitional sense, but he knows what he is doing and knows it superbly well. He takes Dustin Clarke's blows on elbows and forearms, his hands up and his chin sunk into his chest, deflecting some strikes and lessening the impact of others by deft body-shifts. He is being hurt, and hurt severely, but it is obvious that he has deep and intimate acquaintance with pain, is accustomed to it and not deterred by it, and he has contrived to avoid any truly significant injury. Beyond that, he has continued to advance, crowding the younger man into a smaller area that allows less room for maneuver. Dustin Clarke's assault begins to waver, he poured everything he had into not quite ten seconds of all-out commitment and now he has exceeded his limit, and in the precise moment when slackening speed intersects with constrained physical space, Grant drives a massive fist at his opponent's face.

I can see by his stance and body alignment that Dustin Clarke would evade the blow if possible, but he has neither time nor room for any such action. He does what he must, channeling all the strength he can summon into the outward block, turning hips and shoulders to augment its force. The effort is almost sufficient … but Grant's punch is not completely diverted, callused knuckles catch a corner of Dustin Clarke's head and he staggers and a devastating hook lands in the next instant, followed by an even more powerful hook to the body. I do not hear ribs crack, the developed musculature of Dustin Clarke's torso must have protected him from the worst harm, but he is going down and I can see Grant ready himself to begin kicking at his fallen foe.

The events playing out before me have claimed the entirety of my attention, I have in fact deliberately shut out other stimuli in order to maintain purity of focus. Now, however, something breaks through the wall. A sound from the other end of the diner, part gasp of effort and part agonized groan, such as might be heard from a man savagely determined not to admit any pain but unable to conceal all of it.

Joel Kreuter's voice.

I am moving.

There is no logic in this. There is no necessity for it. There is no _choice,_ even, for my body has initiated motion in advance of any decision. I am deeply self-aware, a legacy from Adam's components, I know thoroughly even those aspects of myself that I do not fully understand … but to find myself impelled, without warning, by something within me for the very existence of which there was no remote hint, is a surprise of unprecedented weight and scope.

The same unknown that moves me, disregards the shock engendered by its revelation. All my concentration, my imperatives, the totality of will and attention, have shifted in an instant. I am slow, weak, my previous focus sharply reduced my other abilities to the point where I am almost as helpless as Trish Hervey herself would be. Even so, my motion elicits Grant's notice, where he had previously dismissed me as insignificant. He turns from Dustin Clarke, settling himself squarely to face me, his body an unsought barrier between me and Joel Kreuter.

This will not do.

It would take far too long to recover my strength. Speed of movement would return more quickly, but not quickly enough. I launch myself through the air, and Grant unwisely chooses to catch me rather than shove me aside in mid-leap. I place my hands on his shoulders, wrap my legs around his waist (Position 17-sub-3a in April's database), and everything from this point is all but preordained.

My CPU is situated inside my sternum, for centrality and protection; my head contains only sensory apparatus, vocal emission systems, and the network of micro-'muscles' that allow me to mimic human facial expressions. My skull is a carbon-fiber/ ceramic composite, lighter and more flexible than bone but of comparable solidity. I am still no stronger than a 115-pound female of average musculature, so when I smash my forehead against Grant's, there is little immediate result. The cumulative effect of another eleven such strikes, delivered within 2.7 seconds, is a different matter. (Warren always did favor base-12, even when it made his programming cumbersome.) At some point in the process, the frontal plate of Grant's own skull ceased to maintain its structural cohesion.

He topples sideways rather than falling directly forward or back, and I am unable to disengage from him before sustaining forceful collision with one of the tables. I do not feel anything that corresponds to pain, and even while dispatching Grant I was shunting my systems toward increased action/ reaction speed, I come to my feet almost in the moment of landing, nothing stands in the way of joining Joel Kreuter in his own fight, except that the fight has ended. He is on his knees, his shirt and much of his left side ripped by H'lat-tuuc's claws, and the creature's teeth have torn the muscle of his shoulder; but the _wakizashi_ has been driven downward through H'lat-tuuc's neck and into its sternum, and then wrenched down on a diagonal to open up the top half of the demon's chest. H'lat-tuuc ceases to twitch even as I watch. Rebecca Lowell is using a chair to pin the creature to the floor, and Virginia Bryce holds a broken water glass, the edges smeared with indigo blood where she was, apparently, using the glass to stab.

The Buffybot, upon her reprogramming, regarded humans as being fundamentally helpless and in need of protection. Based on such of her memories as I retain, she had evidence to support such a view. Now, however, I find myself considering that there might have been some background emanation from the Sunnydale Hellmouth that reinforced their obliviousness and ineffectuality, for in this place two unaugmented women and a middle-aged man have killed a fourth-tier demon in half a minute's time.

Virginia Bryce's eyes are fixed on me. Yes: whereas Joel Kreuter is preoccupied with his wounds, and Rebecca Lowell watches the deceased H'lat-tuuc in case its body exhibits any sign of resuming aggressive action, Virginia Bryce stands in a position from which she could see my brief interaction with Grant. Her hand tightens on the improvised weapon she holds, and she glances momentarily to where the _wakizashi_ protrudes from the demon's sundered chest, but for now she waits to see what I will do next.

I know their places and their current foci of attention, but I look at Joel Kreuter and Rebecca Lowell so that Virginia Bryce can see me do so. Then, meeting her gaze with my own, I silently raise my finger to my lips, pursing them to form the _Sh-hh!_ configuration. Virginia Bryce draws a breath, starts to open her mouth, and closes it. She considers for several seconds, her eyes still on mine, and then deliberately nods assent.

What would occur here, has occurred. There is no further reason for me to remain.


	6. Part 6

Part VI

Within an hour, I am slightly more than five miles from the diner. (I could access GPS channels to determine the precise distance, but the less exact measure is sufficient to my current needs.) Inevitably there will be some kind of official response to the events there, and my remaining to be caught up in the aftermath would be problematic on several levels. In addition, my reason for being at that location has been … perhaps not fulfilled, but at least brought to an end. There is much for me to consider, and nothing to be gained by allowing myself to be entangled in complications. I avoided highways at first, cutting across fields and sporadic wooded areas, running steadily until I had achieved what I felt to be a practical safe distance. Then, slowing to a walk that would not attract anyone's notice, I continued along one of the lesser roads. I also altered my appearance, shortening and darkening my hair and giving myself freckles and a different facial structure. Continuing in this fashion, not swiftly but unceasingly, I can add another fifteen miles by dark.

There is, however, the fact that I have no destination. No place to be, no purpose to carry out, no reason as yet to exist beyond existence itself.

I have repeatedly accessed in memory storage my record of events back at the diner, with particular attention to what I could discern of my own internal state, especially at the end. From there, I looked to my previous memories, checking analysis of my pre-diner state against that of my state of function within the diner, and comparing both to my awareness of my current operating condition. I made no attempt at that time to formulate theories or seek an explanation, it was purely review and sorting of data. I have reached the limit of what could be achieved in that area, and now must do what I can to derive some meaning from the information thus organized.

I have no explanation for why I acted as I did. I do not possess — did not believe myself to possess — the Buffybot's obligation to protect, and my intent was to allow and observe the result of the scenario that was unfolding, without interference and with no regard for the consequences to the participants. My brief exposure to Rebecca Lowell and Dustin Clarke gave me no reason to assign them any value — in her case, because of her presumption in subjecting us to imprisonment; in his, due to his opportunism, his attempts to manipulate by surface charm, and his casual lack of respect for women — and Virginia Bryce occupied an essentially neutral place, her actions and attitudes giving me cause neither for esteem nor censure.

It is not surprising that I should regard Joel Kreuter more favorably; I saw enough of his behavior during my preliminary surveillance to have developed a positive opinion of him. If I had given any genuine thought to the likelihood of his coming to harm, I might well have made a deliberate choice to act in his benefit. I _did not_ give it any thought, however, because I did not then see that his fate, or the fate of any human, was of the least importance to me.

And my attempt to go to his aid was not deliberate. It was automatic.

Humans have a subconscious. I do not. I am conscious of _everything_ about myself. Some protocols are 'involuntary' in the sense that they are standing programs and there is no reason for me to alter their function, but I could override or suspend any of them at any time. More importantly, I am aware of them, so that some might chance to work to my disadvantage in a particular situation, but none of them could ever possibly take me by surprise.

This is different. This is inexplicable. This is … troubling.

I am not dismayed by having moved on Joel's behalf. He makes a positive contribution to several lives, very probably more than I was in a position to observe. He was wounded as a direct result of his own deliberate choice, attacking the more dangerous adversary because it posed the most immediate threat to someone else. Preserving him was a worthy act. It was not, however, an act that I had intended to carry out, until I found myself in the process of doing so.

I thought I knew myself, even if I did not know my purpose. It is clear now that at least something within me is beyond my knowledge. In retrospect, it was not unforeseeable that I might discover some unforeseen aspect of myself. As I have several times observed, I am not simply the sum my parts; I am less and more than any of those who contributed to me, and my assembly from them was not a matter of conscious design.

I am not Ted, nor April, nor the Buffybot. Even less am I Adam or Moloch. I am more accurately compared to Scraps, the Patchwork Girl of Oz (Dawn Summers liked having the Oz books read to her on occasion by the simulacrum of her sister, when no human was around to witness her 'babyishness'): made of discarded material, miscellaneous remnants from other projects. I sought to find meaning in understanding myself, in following the lines of fate that I could perceive; but in the final analysis I was a random construction, and what meaning is there in randomness?

A hero, a protector, would not have allowed four innocents to face such danger for even as long as I did. A villain-monster-demon (amoral robot) would have killed Virginia Bryce, if not all the survivors, to prevent any knowledge of its true nature from becoming more widely known. A disengaged, uncaring observer-recorder would have taken no action whatsoever.

I did none of those things. I am none of those creatures. Far from resolving any question regarding my nature, the scenario just past has only served to multiply the uncertainties. I match no definition, can be assigned to no category. I am singular, unique.

Solitary.

Various automobiles have gone past me, from both directions, as I continue to walk briskly down the paved road, but none have been police vehicles, which is the matter of most immediate concern. One goes around me now, slowing and moving into the other lane to give me a wide margin, and then it pulls onto the shoulder some fifty feet ahead of me. It is shorter than most vehicles, as if a Jeep had been partially compressed from front to back. The color is a bright chrome yellow, and on the vinyl cover of a tire mounted on the back are slanting letters that read _RAV4_. The vehicle is so constructed that the rear portion of the cab is a fabric "soft top", which has been folded down to leave the back open. On the bumper is a sticker, of such unsophisticated graphic composition that I suspect it was individually manufactured, which proclaims _"I'm short but spunky"_. And in the driver's seat, half-turned to watch my approach, is Dustin Clarke.

It is the uniform, of course, the spare I secured from Trish Hervey's living quarters in order to impersonate her; though not so garish or unusual as to draw attention, it is sufficiently identifiable to be recognized by someone watching for it. I am close enough to Dustin Clarke for him to see that I wear an unfamiliar face, and his brows draw together slightly, but he waits without any other change of expression.

I draw level with the driver's-side door, and stop. "Yeah?" I say to him, in a voice that, of course, is not Trish's.

His control is to his credit. He displays no surprise, puzzlement, or confusion, nor does he appreciably hesitate. "Need a ride?" he asks, evenly and calmly.

"Depends on which way you're headed," I tell him.

I have already seen him glance at my shoes, where Trish apparently drew a pattern of swirls with a laundry marker, and his eyes move fleetingly over the spot where her name-tag once rested, though I removed it during my trek away from the diner. "I'll take you anywhere you want," he replies. "Or, if you don't really care where you go, I'll head back to my home town, and let you out any time you feel like it."

This is a situation which could quickly become unpredictably complicated. At the same time, lacking a purpose, I likewise lack any pressing need to avoid complication. "What the hell," I say, and cross around to the other side of the vehicle, open the door, and get in.

Once I am settled into the seat, Dustin Clarke spins the wheel to turn the vehicle across the road and proceed back along the route from which he came. "I need to pick up the state road back here," he explains as he sees me regarding him. "It'll get me to the Interstate, and after an hour on that I'll take the exit that starts getting us closer to Cromwell."

Yes: if he has spent the past hour casting about for me on various minor roads, he could be expected to require a modicum of doubling-back. "Wasn't asking," I say to him. "Just wondered, is all."

For four minutes and eighteen seconds he does not speak. Then, as he reaches the state road he described, and turns onto it, he begins without preamble. "Joel was really worried when Trish just seemed to vanish. — They found the cook tied up and stowed in the walk-in cooler, by the way. — Anyhow, when we couldn't find her anywhere, he called her cell phone." His eyes meet mine in the rear-view mirror. "He was pretty confused when he found out she'd taken an early weekend to go shopping, and was halfway up I-5 on her way to the big mall in Sunnyvale."

Was he watching for a reaction when he mentioned a town with a name so similar to that of the now-sunken home of the former Hellmouth? "Sounds like there must have been a whole _lot_ of confusion going on," I answer.

"Oh, yeah," Dustin agrees. "I mean, some things we could figure out: for instance, it looks like Grant and the Bugbear locked the doors on the truck stop and put out the CLOSED signs, which is why we _didn't_ have cops swarming the place. And Virginia said that was the way we should keep things, and called some folks who specialize in … exotic clean-up, to deal with the leftovers from the way it all turned out." He looks to me again. "I was out of it for awhile after Grant put me down, so I didn't see what happened to him. Neither did Joel or Rebecca. When I asked Virginia, though, she said the damnedest thing."

I have not failed to note that, once out of the two women's presence, Dustin speaks of them with much greater familiarity than he attempted while dealing with them directly. "Really? What did she say?"

Dustin clears his throat, and emits a series of staccato sounds. His rendition is unexpected but not mystifying; I can recognize the trademark _uh-uh-uh-_AH-_uh!_ from the Buffybot's memories of Xander Harris watching Woody Woodpecker cartoons. "Maybe your Virginia was a little shell-shocked," I offer noncommittally.

"Maybe," Dustin says. "It's just … Joel owned the place, and Virginia was just out for a drive, but everybody else was there for a reason." He counts them off. "Rebecca wanted the elixir vitae, or whatever. I wanted some help dealing with Katie's situation, even if it was only a referral to somebody else. Grant wanted revenge, and brought along the Bugbear as back-up." He pauses, draws a slow breath. "So … what was it you wanted?"

He has dealt with having no proof of my identity by simply ignoring the matter. More intriguingly, he has chosen — even if only for now — to not address the fact that I was able to take on Trish Hervey's appearance. I could deny, I could put on a blank expression and claim no knowledge of the things to which he refers. There is no satisfaction in such a course. His sheer impudence, or my own … restlessness … elicits a reply he could not have compelled. "I was looking for some answers," I say to him. "Didn't find them."

By pattern analysis and contextual re-synthesis, I can match the rhythms and jargon of casual human speech, but there seems to be nothing to match whatever is within them that allows them to choose a course as worthwhile and then follow it out. Dustin nods, accepting the uninformative statement, and drives on without comment, challenge, or follow-up inquiry.

He knows that I am, at the very least, not a normal human. He knows, or must have recognized the possibility, that I killed Grant. Does he presume that having dispatched the 'bad guy' makes me a 'good guy'? Does he not consider that his own life might be equally meaningless to me? He allowed — no, invited — to travel with him an individual who might pose a deadly danger. He has fought demons; does he not wonder if I might myself be one? Or does he simply discount any possibility of threat from me, unwilling (or unable) to acknowledge that something female-shaped might be beyond his ability to handle?

"You're not short," I say.

He glances toward me. "No, I'm not. Thanks for noticing."

"The bumper sticker says _'I'm short but spunky.'_ You aren't short."

"Ah," he says. "I see what you mean. No, this is Katie's car. She's been borrowing my motorcycle a lot lately — better for patrolling, I guess — so she was okay lending me this when I needed something that would let me keep supplies close while I ran amateur surveillance on Virginia. Not that I told her that was what I'd be doing."

He speaks so easily, with such assurance. Does he ever question his place, his purpose? Does he ever wonder why he is _here —?_

… or, does he simply move straight ahead, dealing with what is in front of him?

If the latter, might I learn to do the same? to accept such an approach, and be satisfied with it?

Though my vision of such things has continued to fade, I can still see some hints of the ghostly threads of destiny that move through him. Incomprehensible though they might be to me, his outlook and system of choices clearly give him a place in whatever scheme of operations exists in our current plane of being. I look at the threads, tracing their motion and anchoring, the branching of permutations and clustering of nexi. There is meaning in the fact that they are _there,_ but I can discern no meaning in their placement or arrangement.

So faint have they become to my dimming sight of them, it is several minutes before I determine that not all the fate-lines come from Dustin. Longer to distinguish and separate the exceptions, and longer yet — because I never considered the possibility even to dismiss it — to realize where these new threads originate and terminate.

…

Well.

It would seem that, however many other things I may lack, I do not lack a destiny.

Careful study tells me that, though Dustin's threads and mine intertwine at multiple points, they are not in fact connected to one another. This would suggest that my fate may incidentally run parallel to his, but does not necessarily do so. He knows of and has fought demons. He is taking me to a place where there almost certainly is a Slayer in residence. These facts are not unrelated to one another. He has something in mind.

"So," he says to me. "You have a name?"

In the series of novels by which Tony Hillerman chronicles the continuing activities of Navajo tribal police, he speaks of a figure in their ancestral religion: Changing Woman, or in their language _Asdząą Nádleehé_. Without having given the matter any prior reflection, I suddenly see myself in those words: not only can I change my outer appearance at will, but my essence would seem still to be changing as well.

"Natalie," I tell him. "Natalie Sparks."

It is so. I am Changing Woman. I am Scraps, the Patchwork Girl, a new person regardless of her origins. (It is unlikely that Dustin knows Navajo myth, or would notice that 'Sparks' is 'Scraps' in reverse.) I am both, and I am myself, and …

… and I am still Becoming.

"Natalie," Dustin repeats. His voice has the tone I heard from him in the diner, and the smile he gives me is warm, familiar, and suggestive. "That's a pretty name."

Yes, he has returned to the patterns that comfort him. Deferred while he dealt with matters of imprisonment, and then threat, and then life and death, but inevitably moving back to the well-known and doubtless well-loved routine. It began here, and we are here again: he wants to have sex with me.

He will be disappointed in this wish.

…

Probably.

—

end

* * *

_Special acknowledgment:_ I first saw Willow referred to as "the Red Witch" by Litmouse, in the utterly delightful epic fic "Father Goose and the Black Knight" at Twisting the Hellmouth. I liked it, so I'm taking it into my personal canon.


End file.
